1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and program for configuring a device using information from a device table.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a device connected to a system via an interface is detected, which may occur when a device is added during runtime or during system initialization, a configuration method program determines whether the loaded device driver is capable of supporting the detected device, such as a storage or other Input/Output (I/O) device. The configuration method issues standard (e.g., Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)) inquiry commands to the device to determine the vendor and product identifiers of the device. The configuration method may also issue additional commands to a storage device, such as: the mode sense command to determine the media format for tape or optical devices; the report target group command to determine the LUN/port affinity for disk devices; the read element status command to determine the element locations for the media changer devices; etc. If a device table used by the device driver includes information for the detected device, then the device driver may configure and use the device. Otherwise, if the device table does not provide information for the detected device, then a new device driver must be installed. The device driver installation process varies between operating systems. With some operating systems, in order to use the device, the system must reboot so that the current device driver and device table are unloaded and then uninstalled so that a new device driver with the updated device table including device configuration information for the detected new device type are loaded into the kernel to make the device available to the system. In other operating systems in which reboot is not required, the device driver and the device table are still unloaded so a new device driver and the device table supporting the detected device may be loaded and used. Unloading the device driver with or without reboot interrupts system operations and interferes with goals of 24 by 7 availability.